Soil costs mount at Carol Stream rec center site
Carol Stream Park District is continuing to spend money to address “undocumented” fill soil at the site of its new recreation center.
The potentially unstable soil was discovered after officials broke ground on the $18 million project last fall and since then consultants have evaluated whether it was wise to build on the Town Center site at Gary Avenue and Lies Road. The extra soil had been added to the site over the years.
One consultant recommended digging to the original soil layer and building the rec center from there — but that option came with a price tag of up to $500,000.
A second consultant, though, found 90 percent of the top layer of soil to be stable, with only a few areas requiring additional support by using larger stones under foundation fittings.
Earlier this week, the park board approved a $52,913.34 payment to Riley Construction for that work — an expenditure that’s added to the district’s original $18,229,055 contract with Riley for construction services on the rec center site.
“I sat in on early meetings when the soil situation came up,” Commissioner Dan Bird said. “Had the (project management office) and staff not been doing their due diligence, this could’ve gotten shuffled off into that half-million dollar figure without many people dealing with it. I’m amazed at this dollar amount and how good it really is.”
The board also authorized a contract extension with ECS Midwest in an amount not to exceed $15,000 for engineering to investigate soft soils in an area that will become the rec center’s parking lot. The park district originally paid ECS $25,000 to evaluate soil on the building site.